Lansing suffered the second significant power outage in a week yesterday, when almost 5,500 customers were left without power. According to a witness, a power line on Peruville Road fell, resulting in a fire in a circuit breaker box. The outage lasted just under two hours for many customers.

"Our records show there is an interruption in your area affecting approximately 5,497 customers," a call to NYSEG yielded. "The estimated restoration is at approximately 12:15pm."

Yesterday's outage fell close on the heels of a power outage Sunday that left 10,747 NYSEG customers without electricity for about four hours. These seem to be part of a rash of outages, most of them minor, and some only lasting a few seconds, just enough time to your electronic clocks. But some Lansing customers complained that the outages are wreaking havoc with their electronic devices, in some cases damaging them.

The power was, indeed restored shortly before 12:15, but not for all customers. 694 customers had to wait another two hours for their service to be restored. For some it was longer than that.

Lansing Town Supervisor Ed LaVigne has been collecting comments on Facebook from Lansing residents who are dismayed by the outages. He has attempted to get information from NYSEG, and has alerted the NYS Public Service Commission (PSC) and NYS Senator Pam Helming's office about the problem. In December he said he had been trying to get NYSEG to explain the outages, but was unable to get a callback from the company. He did connect in February.

LaVigne posted on his Facebook page, "l just got off the phone with a representative from NYSEG pertaining to our sporadic power outages. He believes the cause has been determined to be a faulty switch on the transmission line. An action plan is formulated and implementation will occur hopefully by tomorrow evening."

But the outages have continued. A series of short outages plagues customers, some of whom reported four outages on February 24th. Multiple outages had also been reported February 6th, and again on February 15th.

Despite yesterday's mild, 60 degree weather, 5497 customers in Lansing, Dryden, and Groton were without power. The outage also reportedly impacted cable service, which was down for some Lansing residents who did not lose their electricity.

NYSEG customers can report outages on NYSEG's Outages Web page, and get limited information about outages as they are occurring. You can also sign up for outage text messages that alert you when there is an outage on your property, and again when power has been restored.